


I Drive Your Truck

by TexMex007



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-18
Updated: 2018-06-18
Packaged: 2019-05-24 19:51:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14961072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TexMex007/pseuds/TexMex007
Summary: Today is Father's Day in America June 17, 2018. I have a hard time with this holiday, and decided to write this in some last ditch attempt to achieve catharsis for myself.Like AOS Jim, I grew up without a Father-mine died when I was only 2 years old.I wrote this with Jim in mind and will admit that there are moments that reflect my experience with growing up without a Dad.I wrote this for myself, but if someone out there can read this and enjoy this as the work of fiction that it is then I'm glad.





	I Drive Your Truck

**Author's Note:**

> I own nothing. Inspired by "I Drive Your Truck" by Lee Brice

Jim can smash his mother's prized collection of antique dinnerware, he can tear up her gardens, get stains all over her sundresses- he can burn the whole house down for all Winona cares, as long as he doesn't touch George's truck.

He's seven when he first asks about the truck. She's in the kitchen whipping up a homemade apple pie when he saunters in and rests his chin on the countertop nearby.

She stops slicing apples for the briefest of moments but her son sees it- he sees everything, and it scares her sometimes how keen her little boy is. After a brief moment of cutting apples, she inhales a breath she didn't know she had been holding.

“It was your Father's.” she tells him, reluctantly.

“Oh.”

It's too quiet, and it is so uncharacteristic of him. His reply isn't followed up by a fact about the object in question, or even another question. All curiosity left his voice in that one syllable, leaving it sounding hollow. She braves a glance at him and her heart breaks for the thousandth time for her little boy.

His eyebrows are furrowed together, his lips are pursed and his brilliant eyes are distant and stormy like the Iowan thunderstorms that loom in the distance every time Summer rolls around.

He's got a question, she just knows, like every Mother knows their child. She doesn't press though. Doesn't want to. She doesn't want to know what he wants to ask, and she braces herself as she rolls out the dough.

Finally, he opens his mouth and strikes, question electrical as it surges through Winona's conscious.

“Why don't you drive it?”

Winona doesn't know how to answer that. Doesn't want to- she's almost afraid he won't understand, but James is a smart boy. 

“It's not mine to drive.” She answers, suddenly tired, “it's George's.”

“He's not here anymore.” Jim counters, and it doesn't take a Mother to recognize the bitter and sad undertones to his otherwise logical observation.

“He's not.” She concedes, but oh, does she wish he was, “It's supposed to be a reminder of who he was.”

To Jim, it only feels like a reminder of what he never had. But he doesn't press. He can see the corner of his Mother's eyes starting to turn misty and he knows better than to keep asking questions. He doesn't want his Mom to cry.

He's twelve when Frank comes into the picture. At some point, Winona sits her sons down at the table and talks to them like the young adults they are.

“How would you feel if I married Frank?” she asks, maintaining eye contact with her sons-well, she tries to but Jim won't look at her.

“As long as he treats you right Ma.” Sam dutifully replies, and a secret part of him sighs in relief now that he won't have to be the man of the house anymore. Maybe he can be a normal 17 year old and go out with friends instead of picking up odd jobs and looking after the house all the time.

“I think he will, Sammy.” Winona smiles before turning to Jim who is staring somewhere past her shoulder, “what do you think, James?”

“Do I have to call him 'Dad'?” Jim blurts out after she finally gets him to look her in the eyes. Sam furrows his brow, realization hitting him a little too late and he turns to her as well.

A surge of protectiveness washes over her and threatens to spill out of her eyes as her heart melts in her chest for her children.

“No.” she breathes, grabbing Jim by the arms with a little more force than necessary but she needs to drive this home, “No- you don't have to if you don't want to. Frank isn't expecting you to either.”

A knot that had sunk heavy in Jim's chest slowly unwinds itself. He straightens his shoulders and looks at her, tone serious, 

“I don't want to.”

He doesn't want to, and he can't. He just can't. The idea of calling anyone 'Dad’ besides the one person it was meant for just doesn't sit right with him. The thought is acidic and tastes like betrayal.

“What about..” Jim trails off and clenches his fists.

“What about what, sweetheart?”

“What about our last names?” Jim inquired softly, “will we have to change them?”

“No Baby, you don't have to do that either.” Winona replied quickly, glancing up at Sam to gauge his reactions. He catches her eye and lays an arm over his little brother’s shoulder in a rare gesture of comfort. Jim doesn't pull away.

“I don't want to do that either.”

It's not an option. Not when his last name is one of the few things his Father left him. He's embarrassed with how much dread had filled him up until her assurance drains it all and he excuses himself from the conversation, giving her his blessing with a nod and a “I'm okay with the marriage”.

And he is, now that he knows that those two requests will be honored.

The truck stays where it is in the barn like it has ever since Jim could remember. He grows up taking his homework out there to stare at it and talk to it when he thinks no one is around to hear him. Sam doesn't say anything about it and doesn't tell Mom.

When Sam leaves Iowa, and Jim is fifteen, she takes Jim out back to the barn and shows him what the truck looks like under the hood. She's careful with it like she always is and the severity of her behavior doesn't go unnoticed as he absorbs all the knowledge of the inner workings of this metallic legacy like a sponge. 

She pointedly ignores how softly Jim touches the vehicle and has to take a moment for herself by turning away from her son when she catches him gazing longingly at the inside of the cab. He's never been inside George's truck.

She has to fix that. She just has to. George would want her to- the boy was old enough.

She opens it up for him after they finish up with the engine and, like the time capsule it is, everything of George is there where he left it before they went up into space.

Her boy is not normally this tender with his hands, not normally so gentle and careful and timid with everyday items like a folded up Starfleet t-shirt or an empty bottle of Gatorade.

That's just the thing though-these aren't exactly 'everyday’ items; these are George's things, Winona muses bitterly as Jim lightly plucks a long forgotten groceries list from inside the glovebox. She watches him run a feather-light finger across the ink, his jaw clenching as he studies the handwriting.

“This is his.”

It isn't a question. His voice is tight, and he glances up to her with slightly misty eyes.

“Yeah Baby. It is.” She answers after she's sure she can do so without croaking, “back then, even with the advancement of technology, he still liked to write things down.”

Just like Jim.

“Is there more? I mean- do you have more of his handwriting?”

The question digs into her heart and she nods, turning away from the cab. She hears him put the note back into the glovebox before shutting the door behind him.

“C’mon,” she turned and beckoned him to follow with an outstretched hand before wrapping an arm around his shoulder, “I've got more.”

The green travel trunk beneath Mom's bed turns into a treasure trove more valuable than any mineral Jim can think of. Random letters, old vintage photographs, pieces of mail with random personal notes that make little to no sense are scattered around inside and Jim's heart soars and sinks as he carefully shuffles through the contents, fingers tracing letters and words that his Father literally took the time to sit down and write with his bare hands.

His Father was here- in each and every inconspicuous scrap of paper.

It's too much and not enough all at once.

It's Mother's Day, and Jim is seventeen years old, when he walks into his Mother's room to wake her up for the breakfast that he, Frank, and Sam (who has made it a point to be back for every Mother's Day since leaving) collaborated on, truly fit for a Queen. He tiptoes in and sits on the bed before placing a hand on her shoulder and calls out to her softly.

She mumbles unintelligently and squints up at him, a quiet and keening, “George?”

His heart stops for a second and his chest tightens painfully before he clears his throat and shakes his head.

“No Ma. It's me, Jim.”

Winona blinks again, harder this time and sits up, cheeks warm with embarrassment as she runs a hand through her hair,

“Oh! Sorry Baby.” She swallows down the lump in her throat and rests her hand against his cheek, “For a second…” she shakes her head and the hand falls away.

She's said too much.

She swallows again before swinging her feet over the edge and in her most cheerful tone asks him what's for breakfast.

But the damage is done. She can see it in his eyes- George's eyes. She hates herself for even acknowledging the blinding similarity even though it's difficult not to.

They walk downstairs where the others are waiting and don't speak of it again- of what Winona said without saying it outright.

'You look so much like your Father.’

He never really knows what to say when people find out he's George Kirk’s son. He's tired of people telling him they're sorry. They didn't blow up the Kelvin. They didn't murder his father. Of course, he understood their intentions, but after years of getting “I'm sorry” about something that wasn't going to change, he couldn't help but grow tired of hearing it.

The fact of the matter was that Jim was going to have another birthday without his Father there. Another school year without him there to encourage him to excel in his studies. There were endless moments of domesticity ripped from him when the Kelvin was destroyed that a stranger's “Sorry" wasn't going to fix.

Two years later and Jim is running from his demons that trail after him in the form of expectations from his peers, his teachers and even his family.

Pike shows up like a badger and angel crossbreed from Heaven, swooping in and daring him to do better. He will. He has to. 

He's tired of George's ghost haunting him every time he's looked in the eyes of his Mother, or when someone gets a hold of his last name. He's tired of feeling empty every time he looks in the mirror.

It hurts to admit it but Jim's tired of mourning someone he's never met. That's exactly who George was to him too- a stranger; a stranger who was supposed to be more than that.

Supposed to be.

He stopped idealizing him once he realized it only made the pain worse and and made an attempt to cease mourning the idea of who George could've been to him when he was fourteen and realized he didn't know a single thing personality-wise about the man.

And oh, was it was painful.

But he could outgrow this. He could survive this like he did Tarsus. He would step out of the shadow of his father. He was going to Starfleet, and he was going to be the best Captain ever.

Pike pulls a couple of strings and the day before he ships off his Mother stops him at the door and hands something over. He doesn't need to look at it to know what it is and as he glanced down he sees exactly what he thought- pair of keys he'd never seen before; one of them is to the house and the other is to the truck.

“That was your Father's keyring,” Winona explained softly, “Make sure you come back and give it a whirl. He'd be proud.”

“Alright.”

Hours later he's panting and staring up at the night sky, while George's truck-his truck now- is parked on the side of an old Iowan back road.

He's tired, and there are tears streaking down his face, but he's actually okay. The stars are shining down. There's a wind rustling through his hair. 

All is okay in the world, at least for the moment. The pain isn't gone, but the ache of George Kirk's absence hurts less.


End file.
